


A Place of Hunger

by Merkwerkee



Category: Void Jumpers
Genre: Malice - Freeform, s2 e7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27372943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: When Tag gets shoved into the pool of Malice pouring onto the throne, things become very weird for a bit
Kudos: 1





	A Place of Hunger

Tag watched steadily as his half-dad approached him.

Even as the figure cloaked in black raised the shining glaive high into the air, he couldn’t find it within himself to be afraid. Not of the person in front of him - so very strange and at once strangely familiar. Family may fight, but it held in adversity; that’s what he’d always been told, anyway.

The glaive struck him.

Tag flew back, spending the brief moment of his flight marveling at the lack of pain in his chest - had his half-dad hit him with the flat? - before he landed.

He knew where he was, the moment he stopped moving; the feeling was unmistakable. Winded from the hard landing, he couldn’t even cry out as the ichor around the throne began crawling up his arms and legs. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt, and yet so _familiar_ on a level he could only begin to touch upon. It crawled up his arms and legs, covered his chest, and poured itself into his nose and mouth.

As it did so, it was like his eyes had truly opened for the first time in his life. He could see - he could see _everything_ , from the brilliant Fire of his Summoner, Bryn, to the hard-edged Void of the Spriggan, Puq. He could see Rex, and what Variq had done to her - he could see the pulsing core of the planet, so very far below. It was more than he’d ever seen in his life, and even as he watched, more details became apparent to him.

Anything with even the faintest brush of magic - Bryn, Puq, Rex, Variq - was being drained. The planet was being drained. Even the light from the Continuum fell into the pulsing maw above him. Tag could hardly catch his breath as he looked up into the avatar of hunger. The open mouth, the consuming maw, the black hole that not even Time could escape - it looked _wrong_. Bad. It didn’t belong in this world, and yet the shape was not unfamiliar; had he known something like it once?

He had no time to consider that thought, because the ichor hadn’t just brought him true sight. Power slammed him in the space between one eyeblink and the next. Tainted by the malediction, it poured down the throat of hunger and into the throne - and into Tag. He wasn’t _hungry_ , he neither needed nor wanted the power - but the hunger consumed without cessation, and the power was forced into him. It felt like pouring water into a cup that was already full - or, more accurately, like pumping air into a tire that didn’t need it. He felt full - overfull, stretched thin in a way that scared him. His back arched involuntarily as the power scorched along nerves not designed to hold it, and he could feel his limbs start to shake.

And yet, something in him… _welcomed_ it. It was a small part Tag didn’t like to think about, the part that cried out in the darkness for _more_ , to _take_ beyond what he was given, but a part of him nonetheless. That part remembered hunger, and cried out for more. More ichor, more corrupted power, _more_. _Feed me_ , it whispered in the back of his mind, and he could do nothing but grit his teeth against it. He _wasn’t_ hungry, he _didn’t_ need this power; he would **not** give in.

And then, a whisper of fresh air brushed his soul.

With his eyes open in true sight, Tag could _see_ what Bryn had done; the power of her will manifested as a swirl of Void magic, the magic of negation, and brushed aside some of the ichor that was holding him in the chair. He could see, too, Variq’s desperate attempt to stop Bryn’s work to lessen the ichor’s hold, but the other parallel’s efforts were too little, too late. Freed of enough of the ichor that held him, Tag’s spasming muscles launched him off the throne and partway across the floor.

It was easier to _think_ , now, without the constant stream of power and malice battering at his mind and soul, and yet he felt unmoored. One blink brought the brilliant colors of true sight, the next the more solid tones of the physical realm, and Tag was reasonably sure that at several points he could see the floor _through_ his own hands. The malice _pulled_ at him - he could see it, whenever he was in the phase state, long tendrils of an almost tar-like consistency trying to pull him back onto the throne. He could _feel_ it, sitting alongside his bones, inside of him, whispering in a language he could almost understand, much as he wished he couldn’t.

Tag clawed forward, shaking hands losing grip whenever his whole body left the physical plane. He had to get away from the malice, from the hunger - he could _feel_ it, inside. He wasn’t hungry, not yet, but the possibility was there and the pain of it was enough to drive him to his feet in front of his half-dad. His knees felt like jello, though, and the shaking in his hands wouldn’t stop even when he clenched them into fists. That, combined with the constant shifting between states - though it seemed easier to remain in the phase state, more _natural_ , but he didn’t have time to think about that now - put any thought of doing actual harm to his half-dad out of his mind.

Still, he’d learned a number of lessons in the monastery - in this case, the importance of maintaining concentration and focus.

“Hey! Hey, what’s up, jerk? Ohhhh, you’re such a great dad! Well, you know what? I’m gonna borrow the car and put in my Sum 41 CD, blast it real loud when I bring the car back I’m gonna turn the car off without reducing the volume first so that YOU’RE gonna get in the car the next time YOU wanna go to run an errand, and it’s gonna be SO LOUD and so PUNK ROCK, and you’re not gonna understand it ‘cause you’re OLD and a SHITTY DAD, half dad! In your FACE! Think about THAT! I’m gonna borrow your ties, too, but I’m not gonna roll 'em up when I return 'em, I’m just gonna FOLD 'em and throw 'em on the floor at the bottom of the laundry hamper! That’s where your ties are gonna be! You shitty HOT POCKET of a father!”

Tag couldn’t say where half the things that spewed from his mouth came from; he’d never listened to a musical group by that name, or eaten anything like hot pockets, and yet the memories were there. Buried in the ichor, and pulled up out of his soul in his anger, they spilled out of his mouth with surprising vitriol. Less surprising was the way his half-dad started swinging at him with the glaive. He had to force his limbs into motion to avoid it, yet while his half-dad focused on him, he could see - in the glimpses he could snatch of the physical plane - that Variq was suffering from his half-dad’s inattention.

He couldn’t pay too much attention to his friends, however; while he had managed to synchronize enough to avoid his half-dad’s swings, it was taking all his concentration to maintain their deadly dance. He could tell by the angle of the swings that his half-dad wanted him back on the throne, but while the ichor-stained part of him rejoiced in the thought, Tag himself found the idea abhorrent. If he gave in to the hunger, to the malediction, he knew in some primal part of his soul that he would cease to be Tag, eater of moonberry pies. He would be something else. Someone else.

And he _refused_ to be that person.

_(again?)_

In fact, so engrossed was he with avoiding the striking glaive that the gout of fire visible on all planes took him by surprise. It took his half-dad by surprise, too, even as it launched Variq across the room and into Tag’s arms. His half-dad vanished, and the explosion of ash as the fire consumed Variq utterly was enough to bring Tag mostly back onto the material plane; enough so that he started hacking out the ash in his lungs, anyway. He still trembled, too, where the ichor had poured corrupted power along nerves and pathways that weren’t designed for it, but the motion was comforting in its humanity.

Still, if the coughing hadn’t taken his breath away, the sight in front of him would have. Bryn stood to her full height and laughed as the fiery might of the planet itself swept through her. To his true sight she shone, twice as bright as the Continuum and three times as blinding, yet he couldn’t look away from that great and terrible beauty.

Fortunately, his knees gave out just as fire swept the room, and he watched it pass uncomfortably close overhead. The Sammy Serpent that followed it was a surprise, but the fact that it dissolved into Bryn’s staff seemed somehow right. The fact that she collapsed as well was…concerning, but not as concerning as the ichor that continued to pour from the maw of hunger that had not closed on Variq’s death. He could see it as it continued to gorge on the magics of Bryn and her home; he didn’t like to think what would happen if it remained unchecked.

Tag took a deep breath, and let go of his physical shell.

Instantly, he was in the deep phase state. Magic roiled around him like a high wind, and yet not a single strand of his hair was disarranged. He looked across a vast gulf that was simultaneously no distance at all, and saw Bryn’s golden radiance looking back at him. They both stood in the roil, untouched and unmoved by the mouth that consumed above them, and the magic that swirled around them.

Tag looked her in the eyes, and spoke clearly.

“Hey. That was a really, really cool thing that you just did. And I know it’s scary, and it’s probably always going to be scary.”

A self-deprecating smile tugged at his lips, and he made a vague gesture that encompassed his phase-state self - still human, still Tag. No sign of the hunger, or of his half-dad.

“I’m a kid. I can’t talk about what it’s like to be an adult and spend years reflecting on this, but one thing I’m already starting to figure out? They don’t want us acting like kids. Because kids, they throw tantrums. They scream. They cry. Because they’re in touch with how they feel, and over time we’re told to just, push that away and push that away and push that away, over and over again.” He took a deep breath and spread his hands before him, palms up. “And I think that’s just dumb. You’re my bud, and I suspect that you might think that it’s a little dumb too.”

Bryn’s smile matched his own, and he reached across the distance between them to take her hand in a gesture at once politely distant and achingly intimate. Her world, her palace, her rules - and here he was, just Tag, in the right place at the right time.

“This is _your_ power. This is your _home_.” His heart pinged at the thought, but he pushed it away. “This is _your_ frickin’ _throne room_. There’s no shame in that power. There’s no shame in yelling, and shouting, and screaming, and crying, and laughing, and blowing the fuckin’ shit out of some Fire power.”

She didn’t say anything, but her eyes turned back to the hole in the sky and his involuntarily followed. They didn’t need to speak anymore; their bond was new, and relatively untested, but all they needed in this moment was the assurance of the other’s presence.

Tag grounded himself in the warmth of her fire magic; no longer did he feel like he was riding some sick carnival ride as the ichor in his body attempted to draw him body and soul deeper into the phase state. It wasn’t gone, and he wasn’t sure he could return to the physical realm right at this moment of time, but he was no longer in danger of flying away to where the others couldn’t follow and lose himself in the eternal hunger he felt nibbling at his soul. Embracing it would bring power unimaginable - at a price far too high to pay. To Tag’s mind, anyway.

It wasn’t until a flash of light entered the corner of his vision that he could tear himself away from the mesmerizing sight of the gash in the sky. Looking down, Tag saw glowing purple symbols draw themselves onto Bryn’s face and neck; he couldn’t read them, but something about their shape was…familiar. He looked around and saw Sam kneeling and drawing symbols; it took him a moment to realize it was probably _Puq_ drawing those symbols on the physical plane, and not Sam suddenly knowing an ancient language. He pulled his eyes away just in time to see a wash of green, green light explode from Bryn’s staff.

The scorpion god of the Bloom planet looked even more impressive from Tag’s position in the phase. Its glossy black carapace reflected glints of cyan and magenta in the light of Bryn’s radiance, and orange sparks flickered from it every now and again as the roiling magic in the air roiled too close. There was no mistaking it for the ichor-soaked monstrosity that had come so close to killing them on The Preserve, and he felt his heart swell with something like pride when he looked at it. _They_ had done that, all of them; they could save this place too.

The swirl of healing gold that came out of Bryn’s staff wasn’t surprising, though the scorpion’s use of its tail to shoot all the magic into the hungry wound in the sky caught Tag somewhat off-guard. It made sense, when he thought about it, he just hadn’t been expecting it. And it seemed highly effective; the tear became smaller and smaller until it was finally nothing but an ugly scar in the sky. Then that, too, was healed away and there was a beat of perfect stillness.

And then Tag was flung back into his body on the physical plane with almost as much force as half-dad had used to throw him into the throne. He felt almost bruised, on his psyche, but that discomfort was rapidly eclipsed by whatever the hell was making its way up his throat. He rolled desperately onto his front just as ichor began coming out of his mouth and nose in heavy heaves. He could feel his body _rejecting_ it, _rejecting_ the hunger, _pulling_ him more firmly back into this reality. For some reason, though, the taste of the ichor wasn’t unpleasant; it was almost sweet, in its own way. Yet he could tell that that sweetness was a lie, in the same way that a rainbow shimmer on oil was a lie; its very sweetness betrayed its toxicity and his body wanted it out.

 _Now_.

He collapsed into the rapidly-dissipating mist that was all that remained of the ichor, and had never been more glad to be human.


End file.
